| Thursday, June 05, 2025 | 7:42 AM EST

Nigeria’s Oando PLC on Wednesday reported NGN 4.1 trillion ($2.61 billion) in revenue for 2024, up 44 percent thanks to about four months of contribution from Nigerian Agip Oil Co. (NAOC), acquired from Eni SpA in the third quarter last year.

“2024 was a defining year for Oando, with the successful acquisition and integration of NAOC marking the culmination of a decade-long strategic growth journey which has significantly deepened our upstream portfolio, resulting in our assumption of operatorship of the OML 60-63 series and the doubling of our working interest in the assets from 20 percent to 40 percent, as well as our 2P reserves from 500 million barrels of oil equivalent to 1 billion barrels”, Oando chief executive Wale Tinubu said in an online statement.

Oando produced nearly 24,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day (boed) last year, up three percent from 2023. Oil output grew 22 percent to over 7,500 barrels per day (bpd). Natural gas liquids increased 35 percent to 156 bpd. Natural gas, however, fell five percent to just over 16,000 boed.

It traded 20.7 million barrels of crude, down 37 percent “due to market realignment”. Refined products plunged 64 percent to nearly 600,000 metric tons “impacted by shifts in Nigeria’s domestic supply framework”, the company said.

Profit after tax climbed 267 percent to NGN 220 billion. The board approved NGN 1.28 billion in dividends.

For 2025 Oando expects to produce 30,000-40,000 boed, trade 25 million to 35 million barrels of crude and produce refined volumes of 750,000 to one million metric tons.

“Our key priorities shall include unlocking synergies from the acquisition, addressing above-ground security risks through the implementation of a revamped security framework aimed at curbing the persistent theft of oil, cost optimization, balance sheet restructuring, enhancing operational efficiency, and leveraging technology to improve productivity across our operations”, Tinubu added.

“In our bid to ramp up production towards achieving our target of 100,000 bopd and 1.5 tcf of gas by 2029, we shall pursue a dual-track approach of rig-less interventions and well workovers, complemented by an aggressive drilling program”.

Oando completed the NAOC acquisition from Italy’s state-backed Eni for nearly $800 million in August 2024. NAOC operates Oil Mining Licenses (OMLs) 60, 61, 62 and 63 in the Niger Delta through the NAOC joint venture with Oando and Nigeria National Petroleum Co. Ltd. (NNPC). NAOC and Oando held a 20 percent stake each in the joint venture. Oando has now raised its stake in the four licenses to 40 percent. NAOC had contributed 40,000 boed to Eni’s production, according to Eni. The acquisition also included NAOC’s 48 percent and 90 percent operating stakes in exploration leases 135 and 282 respectively.

Oando now operates 40 discovered oil and gas fields of which 24 are producing, over 1,250 kilometers (776.71 miles) of pipelines, multiple flow stations, three gas processing facilities, an export terminal and two power plants with a combined capacity of one gigawatt, according to the company.

Also on Wednesday Oando announced the completion of a $375 million upsizing of its reserve-based loan facility. “The RBL2 facility secured in 2019 at $525 million, was paid down to $100 million by year-end 2024, creating significant headroom for refinancing and enhancing Oando’s financial flexibility”, it said.

The refinancing is supported by the African Export-Import Bank, which also helped fund the NAOC purchase.

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